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[Merged] Immortality & Bayesian Statistics

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Jabba said:
...
- My claim:
1. Your sense of self had no prior existence, or “representation,” of any kind prior to its current existence.
2. “Prior representation” would be chemistry such that identical batches of it would produce your sense of self, and only your sense of self.
3. Apparently, there is no such chemistry re your sense of self.
- Problems so far?
Click to expand...

xtifr said:
This is a tautology. I'm not quite sure why you bothered to say it, but it's trivially true. Things that exist didn't exist before they existed. :)...
Click to expand...
xtifr,
- If I understand what you're saying, it didn't say what I was saying, and what I said wasn't a tautology. Mostly, I was trying to explain what I meant by "prior representation."
- Maybe I should call it a "mold." There was no "mold" for your self, or for the self of anyone else, prior to your, or their conception -- IF there is no chemistry such that identical batches of it would produce your sense of self, and only your sense of self.
 
Jabba said:
Dave,
- I didn't really understand that. Please elaborate.
Click to expand...

1. godless dave
a. has
b. a problem with:

2. Your post
a. posted here:
b. http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=9972828#post9972828

3. A problem
a. godless dave
b. has pointed out to you before
c. and others
d. have pointed out to you before
e. here: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=9972532#post9972532
f. and here:http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=9972624#post9972624
g. and here:http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=9972704#post9972704
h. to name but a few
i. both before
ii. and after
iii. this post

4. And you
a. ignore objections
b. or don't read the objections
c. or rudely pretend the objections aren't there
d. and ask the questions again
e. plaintively.

5. Many posters have
a.tried to help you understand
b. patiently explained
c. humorously expalined
d. taken to drink
e. aged considerably
f. talked among themselves

6. But it
a. has not helped
b. (see 4.a.-e., incorporated by reference)

7. I hope this
a. makes it clearer
b. answers your question
c. at least amuses the pharaoh
d. does not offend you too badly
e. perhaps even causes you to consider your approach

8. Sincerely,
a. your willing disputant
b. JFred
c. Slowvehicle
d. Hintze
 
OK, let's use the mold analogy. If you have a mold for something, and you cast something using that mold, then you do it again using the same mold, do you have two things or one?
 
godless dave said:
A self cannot be in two places at once.

I don't know how I can further explain the difference between two and one.
Click to expand...

♪♪♫♫"Onnnnnnnnnne is tha lonliest number that'chyul evar dooooooooo....
Twooooooooo can be as bad as one; it's tha lonliest number since the number one..."♪♫♫♪♫
 
Jabba said:
There was no "mold" for your self, or for the self of anyone else, prior to your, or their conception
Click to expand...


Right. There is no mold. The set of all molds is null. It doesn't exist. So, there aren't an infinite number of possible molded people. Because there are no molds.
 
Jabba said:
xtifr,
- If I understand what you're saying, it didn't say what I was saying, and what I said wasn't a tautology. Mostly, I was trying to explain what I meant by "prior representation."
- Maybe I should call it a "mold." There was no "mold" for your self, or for the self of anyone else, prior to your, or their conception -- IF there is no chemistry such that identical batches of it would produce your sense of self, and only your sense of self.
Click to expand...

Good afternoon, Mr. Savage:

You know, you could simply go with the "scientific model's" understanding of consciousness; that is, that each consciousness is unique, an emergent property of a unique neurosystem, the characteristics of which are detemined by the unique structure of the neurosystem as shaped and influenced by the unique experiences of that neurosystem.

There is no "mold". There is no "template". There is no "infinitely divisable 'pool' ". There is no dam' cat, and no dam' cradle.
 
Jabba said:
xtifr,
- If I understand what you're saying, it didn't say what I was saying, and what I said wasn't a tautology. Mostly, I was trying to explain what I meant by "prior representation."
- Maybe I should call it a "mold." There was no "mold" for your self, or for the self of anyone else, prior to your, or their conception -- IF there is no chemistry such that identical batches of it would produce your sense of self, and only your sense of self.
Click to expand...

Ah, ok, yes, that's not a tautology. It's simply a pointless observation that doesn't further the discussion.

Once again, you're getting confused between the idea of identical things and the same thing. Which renders the highlighted bit meaningless.

Replicating the physics/chemistry of your brain would produce an identical sense of self (or cheese). It would not be the same sense of self, because two different things are two different things, even if they're identical, but it would be an identical sense of self, in all respects. At least at the instant of creation.

With or without your bizarre "mold", your sense of self (like your sense of cheese) is entirely dependent on chemistry (or chemistry and physics, depending on how you define the boundaries between those two sciences. I prefer to say it depends on physics, since that's the broader term, and necessarily includes all of chemistry).
 
Jabba said:
xtifr,
- If I understand what you're saying, it didn't say what I was saying, and what I said wasn't a tautology. Mostly, I was trying to explain what I meant by "prior representation."
- Maybe I should call it a "mold." There was no "mold" for your self, or for the self of anyone else, prior to your, or their conception -- IF there is no chemistry such that identical batches of it would produce your sense of self, and only your sense of self.
Click to expand...

Why are you talking about molds or prior representations?

Have you really not understood that the sense of self is merely a functioning of the brain?
 
Loss Leader said:
Right. There is no mold. The set of all molds is null. It doesn't exist. So, there aren't an infinite number of possible molded people. Because there are no molds.
Click to expand...

Mold never grows on a rolling stone which proves we are immortal because we're not all moldy.

Our personality recapitulates in various forms much like mold does.

Infinity, infinity, infinity.
 
godless dave said:
A self cannot be in two places at once.

.
Click to expand...

Slacker, In infinity we can be in as many locations as we want, only those locked into a materialistic mentality are so boring as to be in only one location at a time.

Bilocate, trilocate, become an infinity of entities.
 
Okay let's try this yet again. I so look forward to this one either being ignored or responded too with meaningless word salad.

We have "identity" as a concept because the variations in the human mind means that the odds against two humans having the same neurological state is unlikely to the point that we can call it resonably impossible. There is, at this moment, no other human being that sees the world exactly as I do right now.

Now, and hold onto your hats boys and girls because I am going to blow your mind, if we lived in a world where multiple humans could have identical thought patterns... we would have the same concept of identity, if we had one at all.

You see, and this is just a paradigm shift of new information here, if the world were different, it would be different.

If the world were different we wouldn't look at it the same way. There I just summed up an entire PhD in Philosophy for you.
 
Jabba doesn't seem to have thought through all of the implications to his theory (no surprise). So he appears to believe in a universal infinitely divisible consciousness which is "pinched off" to create selves (and which I assume he believes that our consciousness returns to when we die) but he also talks of the "self" as a unique entity that is preserved as a "self" and is reincarnated. So this self must continue as a discrete entity when it returns to the universal consciousness and again when it is placed as a whole into the newly reincarnated being. So something (god?) must allocate the reincarnated selves correctly so that I get a human's and not a cat's. Right, Jabba?

Even more so, given there are more people than ever, are we forever restricted to copies of the pre-existing selves? How many ones are there? If all new selves are copies of old ones, how many possibilities are there? If infinite, as suggested by Jabba, then why reincarnate (recycle) at all?

Enough trying to understand Jabba- I need a beer!
 
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Slowvehicle said:
Good afternoon, Mr. Savage:

You know, you could simply go with the "scientific model's" understanding of consciousness; that is, that each consciousness is unique, an emergent property of a unique neurosystem, the characteristics of which are detemined by the unique structure of the neurosystem as shaped and influenced by the unique experiences of that neurosystem.

There is no "mold". There is no "template". There is no "infinitely divisable 'pool' ". There is no dam' cat, and no dam' cradle.
Click to expand...

Vonnegut!

Jabba, as suggested here, the SM is much simpler than your idea, and needs a lot less continuous "fitting" of the theory to the facts compared to your theory. Now that you know the actual SM, it is probably a lot more logical than what you thought it to be.
 
Slowvehicle said:
At least you would not know that you were making the same mistakes all over again.

(Kinds indistinguishable form not being "reincarnated" at all, innit?)
Click to expand...

It is interesting that in Jabba's world, none of what I think of as me would be in my reincarnated "self." So why would this relieve my concerns about death? At least my kids have half of my genes (the FSM help them!) and have politely listened to some of what I've told them.
 
pakeha said:
Why are you talking about molds or prior representations?

Have you really not understood that the sense of self is merely a functioning of the brain?
Click to expand...

Mould will render us all down to our constituent chemicals before Jabba agrees to this.
 
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